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Ray Purdy (Centre for Law and the Environment) and Denise Leung (formerly Centre for Law and the Environment, UCL Laws – now World Resources Institute) are editors of a new book released in December 2012. The 498 page volume entitled Evidence from Earth Observation Satellites: Emerging Legal Issues is published by Martinus Nijhoff / Brill (Leiden).

Satellite technologies are rapidly improving, offering increased opportunities for monitoring laws, and using images as evidence in court. Evidence from Earth Observation Satellites analyses whether data from satellite technologies can be a legally reliable, effective evidential tool in contemporary legal systems. This unique interdisciplinary volume brings together leading experts to consider many emerging issues surrounding the use of these technologies in legal strategies. Issues examined include the evidential opportunities arising from technological developments, existing regulatory applications and operational experiences at national and international level, and admissibility in courts and tools for ensuring the integrity of evidence. It also examines privacy impacts under existing legislation and provides a new conceptual framework for debating the acceptability of such surveillance methods.